Panis has pulled offline and out of the way but he cannot get the car started. Will this be a restart? Yes. Karol Basz has also made a pass, a man we associate with Lamborghini's. We need a breakdown truck. But a safety car is going to not be enouygh and the Boutsen VDS team are heartbroken. Full Course Yellow, now. This is our 23rd Full Course Yellow. The #10 car can be moved but we need to bring out the safety car and the #998 BMW could do a drive through to do a reset on drive time. Porsche #92 and Mercedes #777 have also pitted with 54 minutes only, left on the board. Everyone has done a reset.
Green flag, back to racing. Some cars need to pit before the end. Who is going to win this thing? This race has had amazing twists and turns! Tomaso Mosca has come from 66th place on the grid all the way up to 14th! Holy moly! That's wild! Mosca sharing with Louis and Jef Machiels and Andrea Bertolini. A battle now between Aston, Audi, and Audi. Colin Braun and David Pittard up the road. Pittard passes Ricardo Feller. Mercedes #10, the drivetrain went out. Massive disappointment.
Wow! The #19 Lamborghini has stopped in the pit lane and the #51 Ferrari might lose the race because of this because of the fact that they are blocked to get into the pit lane! Oh my God! By criminy! Ferrari will be so upset and the Aston Martin team goes mad! They could win this race if they keep their noses clean! The Lamborghini was plumb in the middle of the working lane, Hugo Cook at the wheel of the Lamborghini. Oh man! Oh man! Oh man! Alessandro Pier Guidi will have a wasp in his knickers and drive like a man possessed!
BMW #998 has passed by. Pier Guidi will be driving like a madman for 45 minutes. The lead is gone! Oh my heavens! Max Hesse will be ahead of Alessandro Pier Guidi. Mattia Drudi is told, "zero risk, bring it home." Comtoyou Aston Martin could possibly triumph. But we have 43 minutes to go. I am not going to give anything away. You will have to read more about what happens.
Pit stops las for two minutes and a flying lap is 2:17 and change. Hesse must lap quicker than Drudi. Hesse ,ust pull out 17 seconds. Drudi to the pit lane. The pit entrance is completely clear. One last pit stop. This is it. The team will change to fresh Pirelli tires for the end along with adding the fuel. Max Hesse pushng on as Mattia Drudi is just fine. He could have the biggest victory of his career and could be Aston Martin's first win at Spa in the 24 hours since 1948.
Max Hesse in the BMW will be pushing, pushing, pushing. 38 minutes to go. Alessandro Pier Guidi cannot believe his luck, hustling behind the Walkenhorst Aston Martin of David Pittard. Pier Guidi will be absolutely crushed. He is doing all he can do to get ahead of David Pittard. A parked car in the pit lane? Never. Never. No penalty and all they could do is get a tow vehicle to it. 35 minutes left as the cars sweep through Pouhon. You cannot but feel for Alessandro Pier Guidi having to sit still and wait for a vehicle to get out of the way. This is worse than being set on fire or some other miserable torture.
Drudi leads Hesse by 28 seconds. Julien Andlauer getting a Porsche onto a provisional podium spot. The Gold Cup duel is still going on in earnest with just over half an hour left. The 24 Hours of Spa is part of Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli. Ricardo Feller runs ninth right now. At one point, I wouldn't have underestimated another Audi victory here at Spa. They threw all their eggs in the Formula 1 basket. Will they have a new GT3 car? Yannick Mettler, Aaron Walker, James Kell, and Anthony Bartone, the four of them have kept out of strife. Nick Catsburg, Ian James, Colin Braun, and George Kurtz are also going after it.
Alessandro Pier Guidi in fifth cannot pass David Pittard. Pier Guidi cannot pass. Pier Guidi right on Pittard and Pier Guidi went off the road and so, he will have to give the place back to David Pittard. Side by side into Les Combes and there's come contact and that was a big clonk! It is convergence of two cars from different angles. Pier Guidi is now motoring hunting down Julien Andlauer. You can cut the tension with a knife. Nicki Thiim says he feels sorry for the Italians. It is the first time for Comtoyou Aston Martin with the new Vantage AMR GT3 Evo.
His dad Kurt Thiim never won this race at the 24 Hours of Spa. Alessandro Pier Guidi reeling in Julien Andlauer and the incident has been noted but there is no action yet. Hopefully they get around to it before the checkered flag. Pier Guidi is going for a podium leaving nothing on the table, driving the wheels off that Ferrari 296 GT3. David Pittard cops the rap for it. He will have a ten second time penalty according to Race Director Alain Adam. Pittard drove into the Ferrari. Andlauer, Pittard, and Vanthoor are going to be battling and the other two best be told Pittard has a penalty in his future.
An unexpectedly dramatic end to the centenary 24 Hours of Spa! Pittard sweeps right by the Porsche of Andlauer. Dries Vanthoor was told by his crew to give them everything he's got to bring the WRT BMW M4 GT3 home. Both the #32 and #46 cars for WRT have been through the wringer. Patrick Kujala and Tomaso Mosca have their own battle. Drudi to Hesse 25 seconds. Eight cars on the lead lap at the end is the record, and we have seven. Could we beat the record? We'll see. Stay tuned. We aren't finished yet.
Nine cars, remember, would be a record of lead lap finishers in this event. Nine on the lead lap. Mattia Drudi leads. Tomaso Mosca can't pass Patrick Kujala, the Italian vs. the Finlander. Pier Guidi third but not gaining enough to improve. In the Bronze class it is Kujala ahead of Mosca. Kujala in the Barwell Lamborghini. Mattia Drudi focusing on driving, relaxing a bit. Be careful. There are noises. The Aston Martin does sound rumbly, off throttle. Sounds fine at full throttle. What about on deceleration? It is a little jittery off throttle. Is it the turbo? Probably nothing significant. 15 minutes to go for Mattia Drudi. He is bringing it home.
Don't lost your rhythm. Listen to what the team is telling you. He turns out of Brussels corner and toward Speakers' corner. TF Sport and Nicki Thiim won the Pro-Am class at the 2019 24 Hours of Spa. It would be the first 24 Hours of Spa win for Aston Martin since 1948 and there was a class win. Julien Andlauer just pitted and he will fall down the order. Mattia Drudi has 26 seconds in hand, with 12 minutes left on the board. A maximum of five more laps. Andlauer is a lap down on the road ahead of Max Hesse. Only five cars now on the lead lap. Throw a "new record" in the trash. Recycle it.
The Ferrari team, this is just not their year at Spa this year. There could be a fine or a points penalty but it is just bad luck. Pier Guidi is pushing hard, absolutely going for it like mad. But he knows he won't get there. He has pulled back one second but he will not pull a rabbbit out of a hat, I don't think. Pier Guidi is still pushing hard. Mattia Drudi, 474 laps on the board. 2,062 miles as someone goes way off the road and through the grass, the eSports racer James Baldwin, way off the road, a race winner in the real world and a gold medalist in eSports in the FIA Motorsports Games.
Mattia Drudi has eight minutes left. He has not found himself in clumps of traffic in the waning moments. Lift and coast, reduce the RPM, hit your marks. Bring it home. Don't think about the checkered flag. Stay focused. Mattia Drudi switching from Audi and switching teams from Tresor Attempto to Comtoyou. The GT3 lap record belongs to Marco Mapelli beating Tim Heinemann and Oliver Gavin maintains a GT3 class record. Two more laps remaining. Max Hesse will be marginal for completing his stint to the required time, I think. The Full Course Yellow, he will be fine, there is a grace period to elongate the stint time from 62 minutes to 67 minutes.
The BMW is still in second spot, quicker than the Aston Martin. Two laps to go. Three and a half minutes on the clock. Destiny waits for Aston Martin. Aston Martin looking for their first win in the 24 Hours of Spa since 1948, and now, the #998 BMW M4 GT3 is going to do a drive through and so this will move Alessandro Pier Guidi and Ferrari back to second place. Ferrari #51 won't have enough to catch Drudi but Pier Guidi will drive the wheels off of it and on corrected time, the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 to third. Nikki Thiim and Maco Sorensen looking on and they can't believe it. Final lap. The next time out of La Source, we will have new race winners.
For the first time since 1948, Aston Martin wins the 24 Hours of Spa! 1948 was the most recent win, 76 years ago, with British drivers St. John Horsfall and Leslie Johnson in an Aston Martin 2-liter Sports Car. An Aston Matin DB-1. Now, it is Mattia Drudi, Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorensen, and Comtoyou win the 24 Hours of Spa! 76 years! 76 years! You have to feel for Alessandro Pier Guidi, Alessio Rovera, and Davide Rigon. Record books do not record moral victories. It is a travesty, sure, but it wasn't meant to be. Comtoyou celebrates! Team owner Jean Michel Baert is over the moon. The team's relationship with Aston Martin began with a Facebook message. Marco Sorensen, Nicki Thiim, and Mattia Drudi win the 24 Hours of Spa!
Overall/Pro: #007 Drudi/Thiim/Sorensen Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR
GT3 EVO
Gold: #777 Al Zubair/Baumann/Ellis/Grenier Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
Silver: #3 Mettler/Kell/Bartone/Walker GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
Bronze: #66 Mukovoz/Nesov/Pereira/Hofer Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS Evo II.
Pro-Am: #4 Kurtz/James/Catsburg/Braun CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3
Evo
IGTC: #32 Vanthoor/van der Linde/Weerts Team WRT BMW M4 GT3
The winners of the Intercontinental GT Challenge section, Team WRT BMW and the #32 BMW M4 GT3 of Dries Vanthoor, Sheldon van der Linde, and Charles Weerts.
The biggest, biggest celebration is about to start! Holy cow! Cue the dance music for the results. The last time a British brand won the 24 Hours of Spa was 40 years ago in the touring car era. That was Jaguar with the fabled V12 XJ-S with Hans Heyer, Tom Walkinshaw, and Win Percy. This was the Group A touring car era of the 24 Hours of Spa. British brands win Spa, 40 years apart! Mercedes did well in the subcategories, not overall, but in the subcategories. Silver, Gold, and Pro-Am. Audi wins in Bronze. Fans stayed to the very end in spite of the wacky weather we had.
What a classic race as the dignitaries are here for the trophy presentations. The home anthem, the Belgian National Anthem plays. The drivers get their medals and the IGTC winners reap their rewards. Champagne! I do feel for Alessandro Pier Guidi who has won the 24 Hours of Spa and the 24 Hours of Le Mans before, but he lost this one in a very trivial way.
Now we celebrate the Gold Cup winners. The 24 Hours of Spa is thriving in the GT3 era. It is so great to have the famed drivers from the past here, too. Trophies to the Gold Cup winners. We have cued the dance music as usual, to check out the points. You can check all of it out on the SRO Motorsports Group webpages. More podiums, Silver, Bronze, and Pro-Am. The champagne is sprayed for Pro-Am Cup. Pirelli Circuit Activities Manager Mattia Braga presents the trophies.Checking out all the podiums and trophy presentations as well as the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap Award. Marco Mapelli wins that.
Well, we won't get to speak about all the podium finishers. But stay tuned. There is more post-race from Spa. There is the race recap, and we will have plenty of bonus centenary coverage for you. We will have some of the support races for you in due course including videos of races for some pretty cool historic cars that raced at Spa and celebrate the race's glorious past. For now, Au Revoir from the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium. This centenary edition has been fabulous! One for the history books! Bye bye.
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